European triode festival

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Since 1998 each year the European Triode Festival (ETF) has been held in various venues in Europe. The ETF focuses on do-it-yourself audio valve amplifiers using triode vacuum tubes, and brings together some 100 high end vacuum tube audiophiles from all over the world (from as far away as Finland and New Zealand). At the Festival participants demonstrate their (all home-built) equipment (analogue/digital/amps/speakers/etc.) and discuss all aspects of high-end vacuum tube sound reproduction. It's a private venture of audio lovers, commercial activities are not allowed.

The first 3 years the festival was organised by Kurt Steffensen and held in Aarhus, Denmark. The next 3 years Christian Rintelen and Wolfgang Braun organised the festival and held it in Langenargen, Germany, in 2006 Guido Tent and Emile Sprenger will organise the Festival in The Beukenhof, a former monastery in Biezenmortel, The Netherlands. During the 2 days of the Festival, several seminars, workshops, shootouts and musical performances are organised.

Previous seminar speakers have included people like Jean Hiraga, Morgan Jones, Lynn Olson, Per Lundahl (Lundahl Transformers), Brian Sowter (Sowter Transformers of England), Steve Bench, Guido Tent (Tentlabs), Allen Wright (VSE), Peter van Willenswaard of Stereophile magazine, Pieter Treurniet (Tribute Transformers) and John Boskie.

Previous workshops have included subjects such as power supplies (shunt/series/passive/regulated), the sound of distortion, noise and hum, speaker crossovers and digital jitter. Audio gear listening competitions are held for items such as phono stages, full range speakers, single-ended triode amplifiers s and output transformers.

ETF's have been reviewed in several magazines, including Revue du Son, TNT Audio, 6Moons and Prestige Audio Video.

A recurring item with each Festival is a Special Guest that is invited to join the Festival and hold a presentation about a high-end audio subject of their own choice.